red and yellow hearts
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [part of the Dual Heart series] Vivio is a picture of innocence, but Nanoha knows that fate won't be so kind to them to continue this. Not while she bears a red device and Vivio a yellow. Not when Nanoha thinks she knows why Vivio's device has been born.


**A/N:** I may have rewritten the mage and device law for the Nanoha universe. :D It didn't start that way, mind you. But I liked the concept so it stuck and expanded and this wound up going from a standalone oneshot to a fable-style preview of sorts to more. The series is called Dual Heart and information can be found in my series information docs (link's on my profile). Though with the number of WIPs currently in progress, it'll probably be a while before I do any solid work in this verse.

Also written for the Diversity Challenge, D26 – write using the in medias res device.

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><p><strong>red and yellow hearts<strong>

**.**

'Someone died.'

'Really? How can you tell?'

'Because the sky cries when someone dies. Even across dimensions…'

'Crying?' A laugh. 'There's no rain. Not even a cloud in the sky.'

'No…but there is more than one way the sky can cry…'

**.**

The sky rains with power. The light of a life goes out, vanishes into the stars.

Somewhere else, the power is called. And it falls the calling, the beckoning. It merges. It collects. In drains. To a collecting tank.

Slowly, it becomes a jewel of power amidst another's tears.

**.**

'Someone's crying.'

'Really? How do you know?'

'Someone always cries when somebody else dies. That's just how we are.'

'We? Just us?'

'We as in all species in this universe capable of love.'

**.**

Tears are power too. Where the rays of a new life begin to form from the ashes of an old, those tears create a new power as well. They form into a gem, just like the rays of life collect into a gem.

They are red: pulsing with passion and blood, and yellow from sadness and tears and attempts at a false reincarnation.

Because memories that could not be surrendered turned yellow. And, sometimes, they led to…other things.

False hope.

**.**

'Somebody's wishing.'

'The sky tells of wishes too?'

'No…it's this.'

'Your device? Why is that?'

'Because these devices are hearts too.'

.

Hearts. Souls. They all live off hope. Bright hope. Sad hope. Fresh hope. Stale hope.

Red hope. Yellow hope.

And they were beginning to form.

**.**

'It has a name, doesn't it? Your device?'

'Of course. All living things have names.'

'How do they get their names then? The new devices?'

'…well, I suppose from the heart that creates them.'

'You mean they decide for themselves?'

'I suppose… When you put it that way, it does sound like that, doesn't it?'

**.**

They continued to form. One a sphere. One a pyramid. Different shapes. Different feelings. Different hearts.

Though they were both born from the same life, they were different.

And their names were unrelated as well. The sounds they made, slowly forming into words: meaning. The names they whispered to themselves as they grew: as they gained form and sentience and will.

'Raising heart,' the red one said.

'Bardiche,' said the yellow.

Sister and brother from the same sort of life.

Red sun and yellow moon.

**.**

'So how do they find mages?'

'Destiny, I suppose. My device originally belonged to somebody else, but she decided she preferred to be with me.'

'Yours is red.'

'Indeed it is.'

'So who has your yellow one?'

'…most never learn the answer to that question.'

A silent stare. Finally: 'but you know, don't you?'

'…yes. Yes, I know. I suppose I'm just…lucky.'

**.**

The sun and the moon rarely meet. Are rarely _meant_ to meet.

They are born in opposite places: the tears close to home, the pulsing energy of a new life far from it. Often, they don't find the person meant for them: the hearts they will become. Often, they dissolve, unable to hold themselves together any more.

Sometimes, they find that special person who can give them eternal life. The person who they can reward with eternal loyalty and love.

Even more rarely, they find their other halves.

And rarest of all, they find their special person and each other.

Raising Heart and Bardiche. They are two of the lucky ones.

Or the unlucky ones.

Eclipses are not meant to last.

And that is what they call the sun and the moon existing together in the same sky.

**.**

'Have you met him?'

'Her. And yes, I have.'_ And you've met her too. _But that was said silently. In her mind. Or, maybe, only in her heart. So no-one else could hear. Including her own years.

'Wow, you're so lucky. I want to meet mine too.'

A sad smile. 'Yeah. Lucky. That's it.'

She wasn't sure she would use that word.

But she couldn't use its antonym either.

**.**

Eclipses aren't meant to last.

They are rarely even meant to occur.

When Raising Heart and Bardiche meet, they create one.

It lasts ten long years before it finally dies.

And, after that, the sky burns.

Because though the sun sheds tears for the dead moon, it cannot revive it.

It can only make a new moon.

A moon without a sun.

**.**

'What about my device? Do you know its pair? Am _I _your pair?'

'No.'

'Not my pair or you don't know.'

'Not your pair.'

'So you _do_ know.'

'…no, I really don't.'

A childish pout. 'You just don't want to tell me.'

'No. I really don't know.' _But I can guess._

'Aww. Well, maybe I'll find out another way.'

'Maybe.' _I hope not._

**.**

It is the sun who gives light, and the moon who reflects.

A moon needs a sun.

If it doesn't have one, it will find one.

If not a sibling, then a child.

A child who will have to go stronger to couple the sun.

But a sun and a moon aren't meant to exist in the same sky.

So there'll be an eclipse again.

**.**

'Mummy? Are you sad?'

A laugh. 'Now why would I be sad?'

'Because someone died?'

'Someone dies every moment of our lives. It's just the way the world works.'

'But you're still sad?'

'…yes, I'm sad.'

'Not because someone died?'

'Hmm…no. It's not really that.'

Fists clutch cloth. 'Will you tell me?'

'I – I can't.'

'You won't?'

'I _can't_. Sometimes it hurts to talk about things, you know?'

'Oh. Okay.'

Of course, she doesn't want her mummy to hurt more.

'Will mummy cry?'

'I don't think so, no.'

'Will the sky cry? It looks a little darker now.'

A ruffle of hair. 'Vivio, the sky is always crying.'

**.**

Somehow, that moon has been born without a sun.

Born to fill the empty hole Bardiche and his mage had left behind.

A faulty cork-stopper to stop things from spiralling out of control.

But the world has already done that. Ten long years of the cold before the world burns.

And the new yellow won't stop the world from burning to its death.

It is already burning.

That child has been born only to correct her parents' sins.

And to fail.

The sun and the moon aren't meant to meet.

They aren't meant to fight, or fall in love.

They aren't meant to destroy the fickle balance of the world.

But that is what they have done.

**.**

'Mummy? Why does the sky always cry?'

'Because it's dying. It is regretting.'

'Regretting what?'

'…a great many things.'

**.**

But it can't be changed. Raising Heart and Bardiche. They have met. They have fought. They have formed a union that should not exist.

Now there is no Bardiche. Just a Raising Heart that will grow without refrain, unbound until the world burns.

And a dead Fate.

And Vivio born to fill the hole in the sky.

A too small Vivio for too big a hole in that sky.


End file.
